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Gen Z women have given up on love. Or so say countless headlines from the past few years, about heterofatalism, dating-app fatigue, the boy sober movement. So it’s refreshing to hear 25-year-old Australian actor Angourie Rice (“rhymes with floury and dowry” her Instagram bio says playfully about her first name) wax lyrical about loving, well ... love.
“Casablanca is one of my favourite movies,” she says. “I’m definitely more of a romantic. I think there’s lots of romance to be found everywhere, and that’s why I love rom-coms as well. They push us to go for it, to run towards the thing you love.”
She says one of her “big ideas” for 2026 was “just letting go of embarrassment” when it comes to relationships. “Something my friend said to me, specifically in relation to dating, is that no one can laugh at you if you’re already laughing at yourself. Which is a really good way to think of it – you do have control in this situation. You can be silly and earnest and romantic, and if it doesn’t work out, you can laugh.”
Love is a natural and timely topic of conversation for Rice, whose latest project is the British rom-com Finding Emily. In it, she plays Emily, a cynical psychology student who believes humans have evolved past the need for romantic attachment. When she comes across Owen, a dyed-in-the-wool romantic willing to go to insane lengths to track down a lost connection, she believes she’s found the perfect case study to prove her thesis.
If Emily is a cipher for Gen Z’s jaded views on love, then floppy-haired Owen, played by 25-year-old Spike Fearn (Ella McCay, Alien: Romulus) is the perfect foil in their parallel coming-of-age stories.
“Emily’s trying to prove that cynicism is actually worth something – to protect herself,” says Rice, who is currently dating. “Through meeting Owen and being fascinated with his open-heartedness and total lack of cynicism, she has to learn to accept those qualities in herself.”
Directed by Alicia MacDonald (SisterS) and written by Rachel Hirons (A Guide to Second Date Sex), Finding Emily was made by Working Title, the celebrated British production company behind such romantic hits as Love Actually, Notting Hill and the Bridget Jones films.
When I meet Rice at Sydney’s Ace Hotel, where she is doing a full day of press to promote Finding Emily, she greets me with hair slightly mussed and smoky eye make-up, despite the early hour. Her grey three-piece suit includes pieces by Australian labels Anna Quan and E Nolan, whose Melbourne store is located not far from where she grew up.
Since making her feature film debut at age 12 in the Australian apocalyptic thriller These Final Hours, Rice has amassed an impressive list of credits, including The Nice Guys, opposite Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe, Sofia Coppola’s 2017 remake of The Beguiled and three films in the Spider-Man franchise. She has also appeared in TV series Black Mirror (alongside Miley Cyrus) and Mare of Easttown with Kate Winslet.
Rice is both a Capricorn and spreadsheet obsessive; she laughs when I mention that people born under her astrological sign are known for discipline and hard work. So, has her definition of success changed with age?
“I put a lot more pressure on myself when I finished school because suddenly this is not just a hobby, this is my career,” she says. “It’s hard because I’m someone who really likes structure and knowing what the next thing is, and yet this career is so not conducive to that. It is very unpredictable, you have so little control over anything, so I just have to deal with that.”
Rice’s parents – her mother is an actor and playwright, her father a television and theatre director – nurtured her and her younger sister’s creative ambitions, leavened with some sage advice from their own experiences. “They really pushed us to perform and make things for fun,” she says. “[They taught us] that nothing else is going to sustain you in the industry except an absolute love of the game.
“It’s hard to separate your self-worth from your career, so it’s about having things that make you feel worthy and happy without external validation.”
Like most child actors, Rice had to sacrifice a “regular” adolescence, even though she was often cast in the role of “ordinary” teenager (she played Cady Heron in the 2024 remake of Mean Girls). Similarly, Rice abandoned her plan to study English literature at university when her acting career took off, meaning she had to play the role in Finding Emily without that real-life experience.
“It was fun to play someone more my age and also to be surrounded by an amazing cast of people my age,” she says, adding that the cast bonded by going to bars and doing karaoke in Manchester, where the film was made.
In playing Emily, Rice got a taste of the university experience, albeit vicariously. “I liked the challenge of playing this character who’s wild and spontaneous and a bit more impulsive than me, and she makes bad choices, and you have to justify that as an actor and get into her head, so that was really fun.”
Still, Rice hasn’t closed the door completely on tertiary study. “[University] will always be there for me,” she says, “and what it might have offered me, I’ve gotten from work.”
To help her get into character, Rice kept a black-and-white photo of a young Goldie Hawn “looking bewildered” on her phone: “This was my main inspiration picture for the whole movie.”
She also created an “Emily” playlist, including songs from famous Manchester bands such as New Order, the Stone Roses and the Smiths, as well as tracks from Garbage, Hole and a few modern songs, including Hot Mess by English pop singer Girli. “I felt that that was very true for Emily,” she says.
Her character is indeed a hot mess, but one with an insatiable appetite for life – and food. Throughout the film, we see Emily eating popcorn, pizza topped with Doritos, and coleslaw and chips with gusto.
“While filming, I watched Ocean’s Eleven for the first time and Brad Pitt eats through that whole movie,” she says. “He said he had this idea that the character is always on the go, so he’s never got time to sit down and eat. So it’s that Brad Pitt thing – and to have this young woman embodying that is fun in its own way.”
As someone who has worked with many big names, Rice stays grounded by having a range of interests that include knitting and baking. Encouraged by her sister, she also took up rock-climbing, something she mentions when a hotel window-washer momentarily interrupts our conversation.
Rice, a voracious reader, also hosts a podcast, The Community Library, in which she dissects the books and stories that have shaped her. But it’s been on pause for over a year. When I ask why, she hesitates. “I would make episodes because I felt like I had something that I wanted to share,” she says. “I am still figuring out my relationship to sharing things on the internet – like, how does that make me feel, and how does that impact my life?”
For now, she’s more comfortable sharing through acting, and her budding career as a writer. In 2023, Rice published her first book, a young-adult novel called Stuck Up & Stupid, which she co-wrote with her mum, Kate. Their second book, a dark comedy about unrequited love called My Wonderful Disgrace, has just been published.
Expressing herself through writing, as opposed to podcasting, she says, “feels so personal and vulnerable. Maybe that has become a way to share creatively. That feels very exposing.”
Finding Emily is in cinemas May 21.
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